System Of A Down’s Shavo Odadjian has shared the debut track from his new band, North Kingsley.
Alongside the bassist, songwriter and director, the group features producer Saro Paparian and lyricist and vocalist Ray Hawthorne.
North Kingsley released their first song, ‘Like That?’, earlier today (August 7). “Are you gonna die like that?” they ask on the chorus. “Fade away until you snap/Are you gonna die like that?” Watch a lyric video for the track below now.
The track will feature on the band’s first three-track collection, which is titled ‘Vol. 1’ and will be released next week (August 14) on Odadjian’s own 22 Red Media.
In a press release, Odadjian said: “We’re giving you songs you can marinade on, instead of 12 songs all at once. There’s going to be a clip for every song, something visually for you to vibe on. I directed videos for System, I do stage production visuals for the band so that’s important to me.
“Saro has an incredible eye for creating new things visually and I act almost how a producer would on that and we are going to drop merch with every release, so it’s more than just music.”
He continued to say that North Kingsley’s sound is “right in the middle” of metal and hip-hop. “The kick and the hi-hats and the snare sounds punk,” he added. “To me punk rock isn’t a style of music, it’s something you live. It’s a lifestyle and it means going against the grain and I heard that there, and we are putting it all together to create something exciting and new for today.”
Meanwhile, System Of A Down’s drummer John Dolmayan said in June that the band were “very unlikely to make new music”.
“There’s egos involved and, quite frankly, wisdom isn’t always something you achieve in older age – sometimes you achieve stubbornness, and we just can’t get out of our own way on that one,” he said. “But I would like to say that it is a band issue. I know that certain members of my band have been blamed in the past, but at the end of the day it takes four people to make the music we make and it takes four people not to make it.”
However, the band are planning to play live next year. This week, they were announced as one of the headliners for Download 2021 alongside Kiss and Biffy Clyro.
